Patriots Mailbag: Looking back and looking forward heading into Thanksgiving

A happy Thanksgiving to you and yours as we get ready for one of the best football weeks/weekends of the year. Between the NFL on Thursday and (now) Friday, and rivalry week in College Football, there's plenty to dig into.

For Patriots fans, the whole slate is available to watch without overlap ahead of the Patriots' Monday Night Football matchup with the New York Giants. There's a lot to look at around the NFL with the team at 10-2, holding the top seed in the AFC playoff picture. Two of the three games on Thursday - Chiefs at Cowboys and Bengals at Ravens - hold AFC standings significance. Other games on Sunday that involve teams chasing the Patriots in the standings include Texans at Colts, Bills at Steelers, and Broncos at Commanders (that one is Sunday Night Football).

That being said, there's plenty to talk about with the Patriots team too, both looking back and looking forward. Let's get to those questions in this week's Patriots Mailbag...

Just in terms of players who haven't gotten enough credit to this point, I have two that stand out - Morgan Moses and Andy Borregales. Maybe MVP is a little strong, but what they've given the team outweighs how much their contributions have been talked about.

For all the talk about the left tackle position throughout the offseason and into the season, right tackle was equally in need of a fix. Some people may have been underwhelmed by Moses' signing, and back in training camp there were questions about his condition and durability as the team managed his workload.

Fast forward and Moses has been a steady 'set-it-and-forget-it' presence on the right side of the Patriots' offensive line. He's started all 12 games, with the series he was out due to an illness against Cincinnati being the first consequential snaps he's missed all year (he got pulled in a couple of blowouts early in the season along with the rest of the starters). His 97.5 pass block efficiency rate ranks 11th among qualified right tackles on PFF to this point. As a team, the Patriots have been much better running to the right side than the left side this year.

As for Borregales, he's bounced back from a rough start in a big way. That clutch kick late in the Miami game seemed to be huge for his confidence as he's hit 15 of his 16 kicks since (including a 6-of-7 mark from 40+) and all 31 of his extra points. There are multiple clutch kicks in there.

The Patriots have been playing more off-coverage, which has at times left Christian Gonzalez more exposed to short passes than he was at times last year. In that sense he may be having a 'down' year but across the board there doesn't seem to be much of a change.

Gonzalez allowing just 48.1% of the passes his way to be completed, compared to the 54.8% from last year. That's at about the same target rate, averaging 6.0 per game over nine games this year, versus 5.3 over 16 games last year. In that time he's also almost already reached his total number of pass breakups from last year (five so far this year, seven last year). Opposing quarterbacks have a 69.7 passer rating when targeting him, which ranks 10th in the NFL among 79 qualified cornerbacks.

Of course cornerback, like offensive line, is one of the toughest positions to measure on statistics. At times he's been put in tough positions given the way the Patriots are playing defense but when asked to man up an opponent he's still playing at a high level. That's particularly true on third downs - in 66 snaps he's allowed just five catches for 44 yards.

When a team gets stopped 11 times inside the five yard line, it's not going to be just one thing that let them down. There's probably a little bit of all of the reasons that you listed as to why the Patriots couldn't punch the ball in.

One thing that David Andrews mentioned on the last episode of the Patriots Hub Podcast was the offensive linemen not getting the push to get their assignments over the goal line, or 'finishing in the end zone.' That's something head coach Mike Vrabel highlighted after the game as well.

I'm sure Will Campbell could play right tackle, but it's hard to see how that would make sense. While there's an overall shortage of tackles, left tackles are especially hard to find. So you'd be filling one hole by potentially creating a bigger one. Also, stylistically Campbell fits more as a left tackle than right tackle in Josh McDaniels' system. Plus, if the Patriots are looking for a long-term option on that side, this draft projects to be strong with right tackles. For the Patriots, it's still in their best interest to keep Campbell at left tackle long-term.

Whether it impacted his performance or not, just on a human level the whole First Take drama has to be kind of tough for Drake Maye. On top of it being one of his first off-field experiences with real superstar status, he's talked about how Cam Newton was his favorite quarterback growing up. They even had a good moment at the beginning of the season when Maye did Newton's signature Superman celebration against the Panthers, and Newton later gave his approval. Clearly, things have changed since then.

No, having to play the Wild Card round certainly doesn't doom the Patriots to a one-and-done performance. If anything, they could have an easier first matchup that weekend than if they don't start until the divisional round. So much of it will come down to the individual matchups, with how much parity exists in the AFC this year. That being said, the injuries this week were a stark reminder of how valuable that bye can be.

This is tough because unlikely the last few years when we had a general idea of where the Patriots would be drafting at this time, this year their top pick could fall into such a wide range. If I had to narrow it down though, I see what projects to be a loaded edge rusher class, especially in the top 50 picks, with multiple potential fits.

That rule was changed in 2018 by the competition committee (prior to that, bye weeks counted as missed time). The cited reason was "under the current rule, some clubs can activate a player after their seventh game, while others cannot activate the player until after their eighth game." (Can be found on page 45 of this document.) At that time the IR window was eight weeks rather than seven, so it's something the league could look to revisit especially since bye weeks to start the year would no longer be a factor (bye weeks begin in Week 5, at that time they began in Week 4).

-I'll be at my parents' house.

-White meat all the way.

-Of course. My top three sides are mashed potatoes, stuffing, and green beans.

-If people want to have ham I wouldn't judge them, but as long as it's alongside a turkey and not instead of. It's a turkey holiday.